dry rot on otherwise nice bench seat

[hillcountryflt]

The vinyl seat in my 69 f100 are in pretty good shape - they have been under a saddleback seat cover for pretty good portion of their existence. When I started looking at removing the seat cover, I noticed that the cloth outer edge (on the back where the attaching clips connect to - for lack of a better phrase) were dry rotting. Is this a repairable issue? Or are new covers in store? I backed away from going ahead and removing the cover as I figured it might hasten issues with the factory seat cover.

[Montana71-F100]

If it's in a place that isn't seen, I've had good luck reinforcing things with heavy fabric, like canvas, attached with contact cement.